Friendship 279very aware of their environment and con-
cerned about the impression they make on
others. High self-monitors reported more
audience challenge problems.
The authors concluded that researchers
have overestimated the degree to which cross-
sex friendships face these challenges. However,
it is also possible that respondents described
only the cross-sex friendships that did not suf-
fer from these challenges. A cross-sex friend-
ship facing any one of these challenges might
not be the one that comes to mind when re-
searchers ask about friendship. Cross-sex
friendships that face these challenges may be
less close than ones that do not. Future re-
search should obtain both persons’ percep-
tions of a cross-sex friendship; one person may
not be facing the emotional bond challenge or
sexual challenge, but the other may.
Since the development of these ideas
about cross-sex challenges, the challenge that
has received the most research attention is the
sexual challenge. Despite Monsour and col-
leagues’ (1994) results, evidence indicates that
sexual tension is a problem in cross-sex friend-
ship, especially for men. A study of adults in
Greece showed that 69% of men and 47% of
women had experienced sexual attraction to a
cross-sex friend (Halatsis & Christakis, 2009).
Research with college students has shown that
28% reported that they were currently sexually
attracted to a cross-sex friend (Reeder, 2000),
and that half (51%) had had sex in the past
with a platonic cross-sex friend whom they
were not dating nor had any intention of dat-
ing (Afifi & Faulkner, 2000). Of those, 56% had
sex with more than one cross-sex friend. Men
are more likely than women to report sexual
attraction and a desire for sex with cross-sex
friends compared to women (Bleske & Buss,
2000; Bleske-Rechek & Buss, 2001). Sexual at-
traction can emerge at any time during a cross-
sex friendship, and when it does, it gets in the
way of the authenticity of the relationship.and women have an unequal status. Will the
relationship be equal? Fourth is theaudience
challenge. Friends may be concerned with the
public’s perception of their relationship. In fact,
people often view cross-sex friendships with
suspicion and wonder if they are not in fact ro-
mantic relationships. Fifth is theopportunity
challenge. Cross-sex friendships are less com-
mon and more difficult to establish than same-
sex friendships because women and men are
somewhat segregated in school, play, and work.
The prevalence of these challenges in
college students’ good and casual cross-sex
friendships was examined with a series of
open-ended questions and closed-ended
questions that reflected these challenges
(Monsour et al., 1994). The primary conclu-
sion was that the majority of relationships did
not suffer from any of these strains. The great-
est challenge was the emotional bond chal-
lenge, and it was more of a problem with good
relationships than with casual relationships.
There were no sex differences in the sexual
challenge, although more men than women
admitted they thought about sex. The sexual
challenge was mentioned more often by stu-
dents who were single compared to students
who were involved in a romantic relationship.
The fewest problems were reported regard-
ing the equality challenge. Theoretically, the
equality challenge should be a major issue for
cross-sex friends, because friendship by defi-
nition is based on equality, and there may be
an imbalance of power in cross-sex friendship.
Although there was little support for
the audience challenge, another study did
show that women are more concerned with
how people view their cross-sex friendships
than their same-sex friendships (Wright &
Scanlon, 1991). Monsour and colleagues
(1994) found that the audience challenge was
related to students’ scores on a personality
variable known as self-monitoring. Recall
from Chapter 5 that high self-monitors areM08_HELG0185_04_SE_C08.indd 279 6/21/11 8:12 AM